This article was originally published by RFID Update.
January 13, 2005—The U.S. Government Printing Office moved full steam ahead today with its RFID passport initiative. Four companies — OTI America, ASK Contactless Technologies, Electronic Data Systems, and Oberthur Card Systems — were each awarded roughly $100,000 contracts to develop electronic passport solutions. Today’s companies join four others that were awarded similarly valued contracts last October to develop the RFID tags for embedding in passports.
The initiative has met vocal resistance from those who believe RFID-enabled passports would needlessly expose their owners to safety and privacy vulnerabilities; passports containing the same information but requiring contact readers would be just as effective, they argue. The GPO has paid lip service to these concerns, but based on today’s announcement it appears that the initiative will stay the course.
